Obama Loses Major Donor on His Own Turf

Ken Griffin raised at least $50,000 for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and just as much for John McCain in 2008, but this election cycle the hedge fund manager has made it clear that his support lies solely with the GOP.

During a $3.3 million fundraiser held at the Pump Room in Chicago, Griffin, the man Forbes names the Windy City’s fifth-richest, publicly endorsed Mitt Romney, reported the Chicago Sun-Times.

Since August, Griffin has given more than $2 million to Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney SuperPAC, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads SuperPAC, as well as the Koch Brothers’s Americans for Prosperity organization.

“It is critical that the next president appreciates that America’s prosperity is driven by the innovation and hard work of the American worker, whose valiant efforts have, in recent years, been undermined by the oppressive weight of government intervention,” Griffin recently stated in an interview with Politico.

Griffin, 43, has gone on record to say that the nation’s wealthiest people have an “insufficient influence” on politics. In addition to raising funds for Obama and McCain, Griffin has also donated $450,000 to Republican Bill Brady’s 2010 Illinois gubernatorial bid, $200,000 to Democrat Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago mayoral campaign, and at least $200,000 to the Stand for Children campaign.